A sequel to Boyle's 1996 film Trainspotting, T2 stars the original ensemble cast, including leads Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, and Robert Carlyle, with Shirley Henderson, James Cosmo, and Kelly Macdonald.

Daniel "Spud" Murphy has returned to a cycle of heroin addiction after separating from his wife, Gail, and losing custody of his teenage son Fergus, born after Renton had left.

Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson abuses cocaine, engages in blackmail schemes with his Bulgarian girlfriend, Veronika, and runs a failing pub which he inherited.

Veronika's intervention saves Renton, who then produces a package, giving Sick Boy back his original share of the money.

While serving a prison sentence, Francis "Franco" Begbie escapes and returns to his estranged wife June's flat, meeting his college-bound son, Frank Jr., whom he forces to join him in burgling houses.

He visits Sick Boy, who pretends to have heard of Renton living in Amsterdam and promises to provide Begbie with a false passport so he can travel to the Netherlands to exact revenge.

Doyle, owner of a rival brothel, kidnaps Renton and Sick Boy, drives them to the countryside, and intimidates them into abandoning their scheme, leaving them to walk back to Edinburgh naked.

Veronika arrives, and Begbie steals her phone, with which he sends messages to Renton and Sick Boy pretending to be her and asking them to come to the pub at midnight.

Renton moves back into his now-widowed father's home and embraces him in reconciliation before going to his bedroom and dancing to a remix of "Lust for Life".

Archival footage included Eileen Nicholas as Mrs Renton and Kevin McKidd as Tommy MacKenzie from the first film.

"[6] In March 2013, Boyle said the sequel would be only loosely based on Porno which he felt is "not a great book in the way that Trainspotting, the original novel, is genuinely a masterpiece".

[7] In May 2014, Welsh said that he had spent a week with Boyle, Andrew Macdonald and the creative team behind Trainspotting to discuss the sequel.

"[8] That November, Welsh said that McGregor and Boyle had resolved differences and had held meetings about the film, saying "I know Danny and Ewan are back in touch with each other again.

[11] While promoting Steve Jobs in November 2015, Boyle reiterated the hopes of beginning principal photography for the sequel in May and June 2016, and said that pre-production had begun in Edinburgh.

Boyle also clarified that John Hodge wrote an original screenplay for the sequel, and that the film would not be a strict adaptation of Porno.

An earlier script was reportedly written about 10 years prior, but was scrapped so that the original cast would agree to return for a film sequel.

'"[15] In early December 2015, it was announced that Sony's TriStar Pictures had acquired worldwide rights to the film and that the original lead cast would return.

It features Blondie, the Clash, Wolf Alice, High Contrast, the Prodigy, Queen, Run–D.M.C., Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Underworld, the Rubberbandits and Young Fathers.

The website's critical consensus reads, "T2 Trainspotting adds an intoxicating, emotionally resonant postscript to its classic predecessor, even without fully recapturing the original's fresh, subversive thrill.

Collin praised writer Hodge for refinding the voices of the characters, and called McGregor the dramatic linchpin of the film.

In March 2017, Danny Boyle discussed the possibility of a third Trainspotting film, suggesting that it could be a spin-off centred on the character of Begbie, in a story based on the Irvine Welsh novel The Blade Artist.